Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell laughed when he heard President Obama’s latest budget proposal – $1.6 trillion in new taxes, $50 billion in more stimulus spending and $400 billion in coming cuts to Medicare and other entitlements.

Texas Republicans weren’t laughing. More like crying out … in anger and frustration.

Rep. Pete Olson, a Sugar Land Republican, declared that the president “doubles down on the fiscal cliff”:

The president’s proposal just legislates our nation off the fiscal cliff. I don’t know why he doesn’t understand that raising income and investment taxes on Americans is the best way to ensure a recession. The last thing taxpayers can afford is more wasteful “stimulus” spending, but it is evident that is where he wants to go. House Republicans will not follow. The more President Obama refuses to negotiate a real solution, the clearer it becomes that he views this as a political opportunity. If your goal is not to restore America’s future, but instead to destroy the opposition party, it’s obvious that power – not the people – is your priority. House Republicans will continue to ensure that the power remains with the people.

Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from San Antonio, went further, saying that “Obama wants to go over the cliff.”

Apparently the President wants us to go over the fiscal cliff. This is serious business. Demanding higher taxes, more stimulus, no spending cuts, and no plan to preserve and protect Social Security and Medicare will not solve our fiscal crisis, it will make the crisis much worse.

Such a ‘business as usual’ approach paves the way for a future that offers more unemployment, more national security risks, less opportunity, and a diminished standard of living for all. That seems to be the path the President has set us on by treating major threats to our economy in such a cavalier way.

Thus far, the President has only talked about tax increases on “wealthy” taxpayers (individuals who make more than $200,000 and joint filers who make more than $250,000). If the President gets his way, however, hundreds of thousands of small businesses would be hit by these higher taxes and new hiring would remain weak.

If my Republican friends would think about the working people of America, stop the war on working people of America, and not adhere to the fact that in a recession you must constantly focus on the deficit.